When Anthony Tan graduated from Harvard Business School in 2011, he was expected to rejoin his two older brothers at the family firm, Tan Chong Motors. Instead, the youngest Tan, now 33, decided to strike out on his own with a mobile taxi app developed for a school business-plan contest. His mother was one of the original angel investors; his father, Tan Heng Chew(No. 16 on the 2015 richest Malaysians list), wasn't. The apple didn't fall too far from the tree, though. Anthony says he was inspired by his entrepreneurial grandfather, Tan Yuet Foh, the son of Kuala Lumpur taxi driver that went on to build the multinational auto sales-and-assembly empire.

Tan's GrabTaxi wasn't the first mobile hailing app not tied to a specific taxi company. But the concept was novel in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru when Tan launched what was then called MyTeksi in June 2012. For passengers the free smartphone app enables them to hail a cab from any taxi company, regardless of their location, as well as see the identity of their driver, the route to their destination and the estimated fare. For taxi drivers the app not only earns them an extra fee (the equivalent of 28 U.S. cents for each fare in Kuala Lumpur), but also saves them from wasting gas and time while scouting for customers.

Now in 17 cities in six Southeast Asian countries, GrabTaxi spent last year in an often nasty battle for market share with Easy Taxi, the app developed by German investor and operator Rocket Internet. GrabTaxi may have won the first rounds. At the end of 2014 Easy Taxi pulled out of Indonesia and was laying off staff in Malaysia*, while GrabTaxi Holdings had raised almost $340 million in venture capital and loans; Japan's SoftBank is its biggest investor.

Competition has become more asymmetric, however, since uberfunded Uber quietly began entering cities in the region last spring. Because Uber uses private cars, it facesregulatory hurdles that taxis don't. Affluent yet taxi-starved Singaporeans have welcomed the premium service, and Uber will soon discover whether residents in less-developed markets will follow suit in large enough numbers. --Susan Cunningham

* Update 22 May 2015 : Easy Taxialso shut down operations in Pakistan back in December, as I discovered when puzzling over the Rocket Internet's annual report for 2014, which was released in mid-May. There also have been staff cutbacks in Thailand, but I wasn't able to uncover any more details than that.

* Update 17 December 2015: Turns out that shuttering of Easy Taxi Pakistan (or was it Easy Taxi Malaysia?) was just the beginning. Some time during 2015 Easy Taxi operations shut down in Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. It's hard to get specific about dates because, characteristically for Rocket Internet, there were no public announcements. Singaporeans noticed the absence in September. But social media posts for the others ceased in May. And for Easy Taxi Korea, looks like the end was July, if the last social media posts are an indication.

* Update 19 February 2016: And Easy Taxi Ghana isn't the only African exit. Nigerians don't realize it yet but, yes, Easy Taxi Nigeria shut down in December. That's how Rocket Internet shuts down a company: without public notice.

As a contributing writer to Forbes Asia magazine, I have reported on digital startups and do-gooders, seafood and cineplexes, mining and medical tourism. I have a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and have worked in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo and Was...